AceraEI Toolkit – Free Remote Learning Projects
As schools plan for a possible return to remote learning during the 2020-21 school year, Acera is sharing resources to make virtual learning engaging and fun. Feel free to use them, adapt them, and share them! We also offer a series of virtual, hands-on after school STEAM classes for kids everywhere! View classes and register.
Acera enables young people to have a runway that fits their potential, developing the next generation of scientists, innovators, and leaders for our world. We are creating a microcosm of what is possible for all schools—early and deep exposure to STEM topics and innovative fields, practice in creative and complex thinking and problem solving, and opportunities to learn that align with students’ passions and capacities.
We plan on continuing to populate this list as more lessons are piloted and recorded. Email us if you want periodic updates as we add new activities and – over time – expand them into units. Please feel free to share this with others!
Interested in applying to Acera? Visit our Admissions page and attend one of our monthly virtual Parent Information Sessions.
Blogs by Courtney Dickinson:
- The importance of adventure playgrounds
- Managing kids’ election interest – and angst – at school
- What to look for in a remote summer camp
- One response to the Covid crisis? A Pop-Up School
- Netiquette & remote schooling norms every family needs to know
- Remote learning is the new normal, now what? Lessons from the first three weeks of distance learning
- Five Steps to Successful Remote Learning for School Leaders & Families
- Parents as coaches: Tactics to support your child during remote learning
- Guide to At Home Remote-Learning for Parents/Caregivers: PDF
Activities and Lessons
Download a remote school daily agenda template
Engineering/Architecture:
- A Bed for Goldilocks (K-2): PDF
- Build a Fort & Optional Pulley System (K-8): PDF
- Pollinator Architecture: Structure & Geometry (4-9): PDF
- Material Exploration: Deconstructing Forms (4-9): PDF
- Foil Float Challenge (K-4): PDF
Art/Creativity
- Symmetry Drawing (K-2): PDF
- Radial Symmetry Pictures (2-4): PDF
- Rock Art Photo Journal: Study of Cave Paintings (4-6): PDF
LEGO Design Challenges (all ages):
Tech Hub (All Ages):
- Repairing a Lumitime Clock: Video
- Electric Fireplace repair: Video
- Respectful Disassembly: Keyboards: Video
- Keyboard Reassembly: Video
Tech Hub is a place where students explore computers, smartphones, tablets, robotics, and other tech and is led by Acera’s Technology Manager, David Olson.
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Math:
- Math games for all ages: PDF
- Earn Up! A video lesson on investments and earnings. Video presentation
- Containers & Beans (K-3): PDF
- How Do I Measure? (3-6): PDF
- The Cube: Origami Polyhedra Activity (4-8): PDF
Science:
- Make Your Own Sundial (K-2, but older students may enjoy too): PDF
- Potato Bubbles: A Chemical Reaction (3-9): PDF
- Intro to Microbiomes (4-12): Video Presentation
- Virology: The Original Viral Stars (4-12):
- Part 1, Are Viruses Alive: Student/Teacher Guide:
- Part 1, Are Viruses Alive: Powerpoint
- Part 1, Are Viruses Alive: Presentation + Narration
- Part 2: Hacking Viruses: Full Lesson
- Part 2, Hacking Viruses: Presentation + Narration
- Part 3: The Viral Fossil: Presentation
- Our Beautiful Stinky Friend: A Practical Guide to Fermentation (4-12): Student/Teacher Guide: PDF; Presentation
- Fermentation Bonus Video!
- Four Ingredients, Limitless Possibilities (Make Your Own Bread): PDF
- Hunting & Making Pigments (4-6): PDF
Mindfulness: Daily Connection Challenges!
Kids (and adults!) need to feel connected during this time of social distancing. Acera classroom teacher Kim Machnik offers a different challenge each weekday to encourage us all to stay positive and connected.
Click here to see all Daily Connection Challenges!
Acera Teachers sharing their work via AceraEI: Art lessons by Camila Garcia Enriquez; Scavenger Hunt by Vanessa Roman; Math lessons by Debbie Seidel; A Bed for Goldilocks & Make Your Own Sundial by Amy Yuschik; Virology Science Lessons by Michael Hirsch; Daily Connection Challenges by Kim Machnik; LEGO Design Challenges by David Alsdorf; Engineering/Architecture Lessons by Estee Hill and Josh Briggs.
To be informed of new lessons, suggestions and resources, please send us an email to aceraei@aceraschool.org! For more information on who we are, click below.
At Acera, we believe a school’s success can be measured far beyond its standardized test scores. How happy are its students? Do they feel a sense of purpose at school? Are they developing a capacity for perspective taking and problem solving? Are teachers using evidence-based approaches to pedagogy? Acera’s Education Innovation team is working to change how we measure education to include students’ core capacities, faculty’s use of evidence-based practices, a positive school culture, and standards and achievement.
Tech Hub enables students to emerge as community-minded technologists able to solve problems to benefit the whole school. More a philosophy than a place, Tech Hub can start as simply a cart in a cafeteria with one student fired up to be a knowledgable, technically skillful community member. Concurrently developing emotional intelligence skills and a wide array of technological abilities, Tech Hub members model and spread an attitude of fearlessness at using STEM tools to solve real problems.
Small children can understand big ideas, and computer science is no exception. Acera’s hands-on “Computers and Me” curriculum introduces early elementary students to computer science concepts, and is one example of many creative ways computational thinking and technical fluency can be developed throughout K-12 education, starting at age 5. Pilot-tested and ready to translate for adoption by public schools, these computer science learning approaches help students become facile and fearless.
What if math classes are organized based on what each student is ready to learn, rather than by age? This f
How can educators unleash the initiative and creativity inherent in all children? 